Category: Reviews
Reviews of books, movies, tv shows and other items
23JUL2026 – Country Song for the Morning – Hayes Carll – Take Me Away
For the next twenty days (give or take) posts are going to be iffy so sometimes I’ll post up some songs to take up the slack.
Trash TV – 2026
When I watched a few episodes of the tv show Yellowstone, I reflected that this was a night time soap like Dallas and the other shows of that era. And I had always made a point of avoiding those. And even though Camera Girl adopted it for our viewing pleasure(?!), I did it under protest. Sure, it had some pretty decent country music and some of it was amusing but it was pretty trashy and absurd.
So fast forward a few years and mercifully Yellowstone has expired and other than some spinoffs that I was lucky enough to escape I was trash tv free. But I saw a commercial that previewed a show by the same creator as Yellowstone (Taylor Sheridan) that seemed to involve an aspect of American life that was more realistic(?) than the cattle ranches of Yellowstone. It was called Landman. It starred Billy Bob Thornton and was about the oil industry. Specifically, it was about the Texas Oil Patch and the people who work it. So, a year or two went by before I decided to look into this show. And since I wanted to start at the beginning, I had Camera Girl go to the local library and check out the DVDs for the first season.
Well, yesterday we watched the opening episode and it starts with Thornton (as Tommy Norris) with a hood over his head handcuffed to a chair in an industrial building being guarded by a Mexican cartel thug. Norris is a “landman.” He’s the oil company’s fixer who handles everything from negotiating with the cartels who own the land over the company’s mineral rights to paying off widows when their husbands have been incinerated in a well explosion. So basically, this is only slightly less crazy than the Yellowstone scenario where a livestock law enforcement agent has helicopter gun-ships and assault vehicles.
And yet. I really kind of liked it. Now don’t get me wrong. It’s definitely a night time soap. Thorton’s character has an ex-wife who reminds me of Peggy from “Married with Children” and a half naked 17-year-old daughter who shows up at her father’s doorstep with her boyfriend and is insufferable. But he also has a son who’s working as a roughneck to learn his father’s business and someday make his fortune. And the male-centric atmosphere of the oil patch is such a breath of fresh (or smoky) air that I find myself enjoying Billy Bob’s angry, obscene outbursts whenever anyone objects to his smoking, swearing or other anti-social behaviors. One of my favorite scenes like this occurs when Norris is at the hospital where his son is recovering from proximity to an explosion that killed the rest of his team. Billy Bob smashed the end of his pinky finger while trying to close a valve with a wrench and a hammer. The ER doctor wants him to head for a reconstructive surgeon but the patient says he hasn’t got time and wants the mangled tissue removed and what’s left stitched up. The doctor says no surgeon would do that so Billy Bob takes out his pocket knife and cuts off the mangled flesh and then repeats his request for the doctor to clean up what was left. Now how can you not love that?
Anyway, we watched the second episode today and liked that too. And the soundtrack has some decent country music. So, I’m back in the trash tv world for the foreseeable future. Bless you Taylor Sheridan!
What’s the Perfect Science Fiction Story to Film?
I’m cheating here. I really don’t have some authoritative answer but I’m interested in opinions. I mean I have my own but I’d like to hear from you readers. I guess I’m trying to separate what people want to see filmed from what they think would film best. For instance, someone might love the book Stranger in a Strange Land but think that it wouldn’t translate to the screen at all. And conversely you might not care for a book but recognize that it would make an amazing visual spectacle. So that’s the challenge. What you pick could be your favorite sf book but only if you think that it would be a terrific movie.
So, to be fair I’ll have to pick a book and tell why the movie version would be phenomenal. Hmmmm.
Alright, so I’ll pick a controversial book; Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers.” And I’ll say why. I’m basing my opinion on the 1997 film directed by Paul Verhoeven. Verhoeven made the movie to be an ironic send-up of what he considered a fascist state. So, he was mocking the military that makes up the whole story. And yet, despite this hostile take on Heinlein’s book, the film is a staggeringly vivid visual spectacle. The vistas of battle on planet and in space are remarkable even though this movie used CGI effects that are several decades out of date. So, I try to imagine what could be done if someone who liked the story and the world it envisions wrote and directed it. I think it could be amazing.
Now let me add that I don’t think this would happen in a million years. Woke Hollywood has no interest in a pro-military sf war movie. Ever since Vietnam they’ve made more than ten anti-war movies for every pro-military one. But since I’m not asking, “what’s the movie most likely to be made,” I feel I can select the story that I favor regardless of its chances of actually appearing on the screen. I think of the visual showing Buenos Aires being obliterated from space by the Bugs and I think of what the emotional impact of that scene would be. And if the Rico character were presented as intended, I think it would be a sympathetic one for the male portion of the audience. Of course, the jury is still out on whether I would keep the communal male/female shower facilities that Verhoeven introduced into his film. It has its advantages and disadvantages as a cinematic device. But I would demand that the movie stay as close to Heinlein’s book as possible.
So come on everybody, pick the story that is perfect for the big screen and give your reasons why you think so. And I won’t restrict this by the book’s age. It could be Frankenstein, War of the Worlds or anything else. Even if it’s already been filmed several times, say why a new version would work. But for pity’s sake don’t give me a woke book. My stomach isn’t as strong as it used to be.
Replies:
Ed Brault:
Boy, this is a tough one. There are several I could choose from.
Larry Niven’s “A Gift from Earth” Set on a distant colony planet, it has action, suspense, political upheaval, and a rather unique social commentary on the impact of genetic engineering. The visuals would be well within CGI and other technical effects tech that has been around since Stargate SG-1.
Another would be “The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton. Crime and mystery in a not-too-distant future. Telepathy, psi powers, black market organ transplants, and a unique form of addiction that may not be that far off. All done in an almost-contemporary setting, just add automated flying cars, and a society so desperate for life-extending transplant material, they make almost any crime Capital, even False Advertising, sending the perp to the Organ Banks. Three short stories that put a creative spin on murder. The capper is the Jigsaw Girl, set on the Moon, with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, clones, and interplanetary politics.
“The Children’s Hour”, set on the Wunderland colony on a planet of Alpha Centauri. Conquered by the felinoid race, the Kzinti, and it is used as a staging base for the planned conquest of Earth. Three invasion fleets have been beaten off, but a new Governor has brought a new philosophy of war. Instead of “Scream and Leap” he advocates careful study of the enemy, how he thinks, and how “inferior” technologies may be used in VERY sophisticated ways against a more advanced force. Earth’s GHQ wants him dead, and a special team is sent to get him, by a very fiendish, complex method, all set in a background very reminiscent of “Casablanca”.
Chemist:
We agree on Starship Troopers. I think it could be redone with more attention to Rico and his development – especially his reconciliation with his dad.
Another Heinlein – Puppet Masters. I know. Been done. I think it could have been done better. It already has a very strong female character without being woke. Robert set Puppet Masters up for a sequel but never wrote it. I’d like to see a sequel where the humans take the war to Titan. I think a focus on the man / dog teams would be excellent.
And we know how Hollywood loves sequels – here are two movies just waiting to be made.
Now if you want to make a serious romp movie – any of Harry Harrison’s “Stainless Steel Rat” books would do. If I were writing it, I’d lean into the anti-government aspect. I think it would play well today.
Tregonsee:
Well I would like to see Starship Troopers done correctly. I imagine RAH is still revolving in his grave or haunting Mr. Verhoeven over the 1997 travesty. I think The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress MIGHT work. I’ve always thought the first of Zelazny’s Amber Series Nine Princes in Amber might make a nice movie, or better an 8-10 1hr show series (with other Amber Books to follow if it works). Larry Niven’s Ringworld or Protector might work, although Ringworld will have to be edited lest it skate into deep R or NR rated territory. For romps I favor Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing Of The Dog it is eminently filmable, though again a series might work better. The time travel nonsense is just absolutely beautiful and hilarious; there is a romance (or three), and we rescue an extinct species (spoilers 🙂 ) of great interest. And last but not least, the first couple of the Honor Harrington series might be fun, In particular On Basilisk Station and Honor of The Queen . I’d love to see it get to Field of Dishonor but that’s 5 books in and because of prolong our heroine does not age, but whatever star we choose to play her will age.
Oh and of course given my handle I am for a version of E.E. Smith’s Galactic Patrol. Though I fear modern Hollywood would mangle it more than Mr Verhoeven did Starship Troopers. Many of its features (in particular Lenses being MALE only with one special exception) would not sell in the modern world.
A big issue is that a 2-2.5 hour movie requires 200-250 pages of script. a 150 page book EASILY fills that amount of script, but modern Novels run 300-450 pages (And I’m Not even talking to You Mr. Sanderson…). the series/miniseries model doesn’t make as much cash as a successful movie, so it can’t fund as many physical effects (which still are needed for convincing SciFi c.f. Hail Mary Project ). Hollywood has been leery of NEW SciFi with the soft returns on several Star Wars sequels (doesn’t help they were really weak) and the catastrophe that was John Carter, which I thought was a fairly decent rendering of the Barsoom series start (it essentially being A Princess Of Mars reworked a bit). Maybe Hail Mary Projects‘ success will disabuse them of their SciFi fears, at least until they screw some other pooch big time…
TomD:
Every SF book that I’d like to see as cinema combines the elements of imagination, extrapolation, character development and world building. Problem being that doing all that implies a movie too long and convoluted to be doable or effective.
The book that I’d most like to see is Robert Silverberg’s “Lord Valentines Castle” but it would take a Tolkien Trilogy’s worth of effort to do and quite unlikely.
Tregonsee replied to TomD:
Tom D said
“Every SF book that I’d like to see as cinema combines the elements of imagination, extrapolation, character development and world building.”
I think that is true of a great deal of SciFi/Fantasy. For a film or even a series, we like to have a character or two to focus on, both because star power helps sell films and because with a cast of thousands, filming costs go up and engagement goes down. For many years, The Lord of the Rings and Dune were thought unfilmable. Lynch’s Dune and Bakshi’s LOTR nearly proved that true. I Think Peter Jackson did exceptionally well with LOTR and Denis Villeneuve has done well (albeit mangling the timeline a bit and gender swapping a character unnecessarily) with Dune. It helps to have a producer/director/writer that loves and understands the material.
I don’t remember enough of Lord Valentines Castle to be able to comment on it reasonably, but I think you are correct it probably is to obscure and would perhaps feel derivative of other scifi/fantasy. I wonder if we don’t have two separate classes here: films we’d like to see made and films that could be filmed. The latter class has grown with Computer Special effects reducing costs and making some things possible (e.g. an anatomically correct Puppeteer or Kzin is impossible without modern special effects). I wonder how large the Venn diagram of the overlap of those two classes is. And of course there is a third class, interesting to the general public. without being in that class the chance to break even on production costs goes WAY down.
It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) – A Science Fiction Movie Review
“It! The Terror from Beyond Space” (ITTFBS) is one of those marvelous science fiction movies that are so awful that they can be enjoyed entirely for the camp value. It’s really hard to overstate how cheesy the movie is. And unless you’re a connoisseur of B movie bit players you’ve never heard of the cast. Now, you’ll probably recognize several of them from old tv shows of the time period like “Superman” and “The Twilight Zone” but none of them were movie stars. But they do gamely soldier on with the plot and dialog, such as they are. But when the set is a “space ship” that looks like one room in an industrial building and the “monster” is a guy in a rubber suit you can only do so much.
I won’t warn you about spoilers because you can’t spoil this movie. The dopiness of the “science” defies any concern over spoiling the resolution of the dilemma. It has something to do with the monster having very large lungs from living on Mars and therefore emptying the ship of air will kill the monster faster than if he had smaller lungs! But none of that should be held against this movie. If you watch this movie, you embrace the dopiness.
The plot is basically that the first manned mission to Mars is attacked by a monster that kills eight out of the nine astronauts. A rescue mission is sent to bring back the survivor who is believed to have murdered his shipmates. Of course, the monster stows away by walking into an unlocked entrance and then begins picking off the rescue crew. Once the crew figures out that the survivor was telling the truth about the monster, he seems to become their leader and they combine forces to kill the really hokey looking monster. They try guns, hand grenades, “gas bombs,” electricity and even radiation from their engine. But no soap. Finally, when the monster breaks through the last bulkhead protecting the handful of survivors, they empty the cabin air into space and the monster dies quite dramatically.
So, what makes this movie so special that I don’t pan it. Maybe it’s the two women in the rescue crew. They appear to be nurses who have been sent along to treat victims of the first Mars expedition. They spend most of their scenes holding hands with various crew members and looking soulfully into their eyes while asking them whether the monster is going to eat them all or not. And that’s another great thing about this movie. The monster kills its victims by removing all oxygen and water from their bodies. But since he likes to snack all day long, he drags them around while he’s feeding on them. Then there’s the crew’s space suits. They look like they’re made of wool. And finally, there’s the view of space from the ship. In addition to stars, there are what must be meteors flying by. They look like a few Fourth of July sparklers tied together and pulled along on a string.
So, all in all this is a terrible sci-fi movie by any standard. But for the connoisseur of this sub-genre, it’s a treat. ITTFBS is highly recommended schlock.
19JUL2026 – Country Song for the Morning – In Color – Jamey Johnson
Twelve Months – A Novel of The Dresden Files – by Jim Butcher – An SF&F Book Review
I just finished the latest (and possibly the penultimate) Dresden Files novel; “Twelve Months.” So, what should I say about it. I won’t do a synopsis of the plot. You can get that plenty of places but if you haven’t read it, you don’t want the spoilers. And since this is book 18 (or 19 or 20?) of the series you wouldn’t be reading this book if you’re not already caught up on the saga.
So, I think I’ll just give my impressions of the book as a Harry Dresden book. First of all, this book is a reaction to the havoc that the war in the last book “Battle Ground” wreaked on Harry’s life. He lost several close friends and the love of his life so he’s not doing too well. And so, this book chronicles Harry’s recovery from physical, emotional and supernatural wounds that he sustained.
And I would say that this book is much more of an emotional story than most of his earlier books. And that’s not to say that Harry Dresden has just found his humanity in this book. He was always an emotional man but I think the author is trying to emphasize that this older, wiser Harry is less motivated by anger and more willing to use empathy to think his way out of a conflict. He’s even able to reason with a Lovecraftian monster to avoid a lose-lose situation.
And another observation I have is that I think I can see some of the loose ends being tied together. If the next book is the last chapter of the Dresden Files, then he’s going to have to settle the hash of about twenty major characters and a hundred minor ones. And some of these major characters are tied to railroad tracks with locomotives within sight. And there’s no off-ramp for Harry. He’s slowly advanced over the course of the series from an almost comically overmatched novice at magic to one of the top ten powers in the supernatural world. He has friendships, alliances and vendettas with virtually all of the supernatural powers that exist in his crowded and lovingly detailed urban fantasy universe. There is the White Council of Wizards, the Summer Fey, the Winter Fey, Ghouls, Lycanthropes, a Titan, the Black Court Vampires and the White Court Vampires. There aren’t any more Red Court Vampires because Harry killed off the whole clan in an earlier book. How exactly Jim Butcher intends to pull the plug on Harry’s adventures is a complete mystery to me. Killing him off doesn’t seem to make any of the subplots work better and I just don’t see how he “retires.” Too many enormously powerful forces want him dead.
But suffice it to say, if you’ve enjoyed the earlier Dresden Files installments then you will inhale the four hundred sixty odd pages of “Twelve Months” in a couple of days and immediately wonder why Jim Butcher is leaving you hanging waiting for the conclusion. So, who do I recommend this book to? Why, anyone who has gotten this far in the series of course. And for that audience I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Have Patience Oh My Friend Polemarchus
So, today Camera Girl asked me whether I had figured out the plot for my sequel to “The Sniper.” I had to confess that my efforts to outline the story had so far been pretty feeble. And this has a lot to do with work and the annoying responsibilities it entails. But I have been thinking of late about a plot line having to do with a very, very wealthy and powerful character (Connors) trying to change drastically the way that Americans live.
And this ties in with the current state of affairs in these United States. It’s apparent that people on the Left and the Right are turning to populist leaders and movements because the American dream doesn’t seem to be working very well lately. Of course, the two sides of the political “binary” would attack the problem in completely different ways. The Mamdani wing would confiscate all wealth and “redistribute” it in a way that would turn the United States into Cuba or worse. But even the Right hasn’t managed to turn America into a capitalist wonderland. Trump has made some moves to try and reverse the off-shoring of American industrial jobs but so far, the results have not been robust in my opinion.
So, I look at this situation and I think that this may be the challenge of our age. And suppose the political parties aren’t up to the challenge. And what if the corporations aren’t interested in being part of the solution. If I want to get dystopian, I can have us descend into a rerun of the end of the Roman Republic with our own Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Caesar. We could run that playbook and end up with an Augustus ushering in the approximately five centuries of American imperial rule by destroying the republic.
But what if I write a more hopeful tale. Not a utopia but a technocratic attempt to find a better way to organize society. Of course, artificial intelligence (AI) is the boogeyman of the day right now and it gets stood up as the cause of and cure for all our problems. So, I can easily be accused of jumping on the bandwagon if I have Connors use some form of AI to help design a different framework for integrating people with an optimal result for the great majority of the population.
Now, I freely admit I haven’t the foggiest idea what that would look like or even if such a thing is even theoretically possible. I wouldn’t want to end up looking like Plato does when someone reads through his “Republic” and the whole thing is a bunch of feeble arguments where he knocks down a bunch of straw men on his way to enthroning “philosopher kings” as his best and brightest ruling over his ant hive of an ancient brave new world.
But I think I would like to play around with this idea of a trillionaire re-ordering society along logical lines to optimize human happiness. So that’s kind of my take on the sequel’s plot. Of course, the first question I’m asking myself is whether the attempt is a success or a failure. I’ll have to roll it around to see which is more interesting. Have patience oh my friend Polemarchus.
Books and Bugs
So, today’s post is about nothing. I’m involved in a bunch of random things right now. I’m reading two novels. I’ve got Jim Butcher’s latest Harry Dresden book “Twelve Months” and I’m also reading a very old book called “Buddenbrooks” by the German author Thomas Mann. And you couldn’t hope to find two more completely different stories if you tried. But I have an interest in reading both. But the Dresden book flies by while Mann’s description of the 19th century events in the lives of the merchant family Buddenbrook is a task that I peck away at a few pages at a sitting. The translator saw fit to preserve the large chunks of French that Mann incorporated in the speech of some of his characters. And the religiosity and the local customs of Northern Germany are curiosities for a modern American reader.
I’m also involved in a microscopic inspection of the flora in the fields. I mentioned in an earlier post that I couldn’t find any preying mantis egg sacs in the yard this year and assumed that the mantids that I introduced into the yard in the last couple of years weren’t capable of surviving New England winters. Well, either that isn’t correct or the native populations are making their appearance this year. In two different areas of the yard on two different species of flowering plants (cone flowers and day lilies) I found the specimens photographed below.
Now, these critters are infinitesimally small. And considering my old eyes, I’m shocked I found then at all. And as things stand now, I haven’t been able to locate them again on the plants where I originally spotted them. But this doesn’t discourage me. After following some of the mantids around the fields last year I know that they get around and move quite a lot to find the diet of tiny bugs they need to fuel their substantial growth potential.
And I don’t mind saying that finding these little monsters cheered me up considerably. I really do enjoy hunting them around the fields and watching them go about their work of stalking, killing and eating tiny flies and other arthropods. Their skill is considerable and their appetites remarkable for something so small.
And the other thing keeping me busy is preparation for an upcoming birthday party for one of the grandchildren. I found out that the propane cylinder I was trying to get refilled was too old. Apparently after five years it’s considered unsafe and has to be recertified for use. So, the Tractor Supply folks sold me a new twenty-pound cylinder for eighty bucks and now I have both. I wonder how much they’ll charge me to “recertify” the old one? I’m guessing something like eighty bucks. After all, we’ve got to do whatever we can to discourage the use of evil hydrocarbons! But it’s fine. The burgers and dogs will still taste just as good cooked by the new propane.
Well, that’s enough for now. I’m watching my Amazon account today. I sold 613 pages of “The Sniper” on Kindle Unlimited today. That’s almost three books worth and that is pretty good for my sales output so I want to see if it increases before I go to bed.
Zodiac (2007) – A Movie Review
Zodiac is a crime thriller released in 2007. It was directed by David Fincher and based on the book of the same name by Robert Graysmith. It is a fairly accurate portrayal of the actual Zodiac murders in the late 1960s to early 1970s in Northern California. At least five people were attacked by the Zodiac killer in three separate events and several other crimes were also attributed to him. And the taunting letters that the murderer sent to the newspapers had the residents of the city and suburbs of San Francisco in a panic about the safety of their school age children on account of his threats to target a school bus.
The bulk of the movie is the story of reporters and detectives working on the case following up on the evidence and sifting through the suspects. The cast is headed up by such notables as Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. But even the minor parts are ably performed with special notice for John Carroll Lynch as Arthur Leigh Allen who was the primary suspect and probably has the highlight scene during his police interrogation.
The murder scenes are brutal and creepy in the extreme and the whole film has a dismal sense of foreboding about it that reinforces the sense of dread that the populace felt during the Zodiac’s reign of terror. The investigation into the killings never succeeded in an indictment even though the circumstantial evidence was pretty convincing. And the protracted length of the search is portrayed as having destroyed the careers of the two reporters working on the story and also negatively impacted the SFPD team that was involved. And eventually that is the focus of the movie.
And now my recommendation. I thought this movie was highly entertaining. The director succeeds in maintaining a claustrophobic atmosphere around the investigators while believably showing us where the blunders and problems hampered the search for the killer. We can see how law enforcement back in the 1970s is hampered by a lack of coordination between jurisdictions and what we would consider primitive forensic methods.
Eventually one of newspaper investigators devoted years of his life (and the destruction of his marriage) to ferreting out the neglected details that all link back to the same suspect. But all of it was in vain when that suspect died of natural causes before he could be indicted. But it is a fascinating and creepy real life murder mystery that I can highly recommend to folks who like this fare.